That's a good question, not only regarding this anomalie but regarding quite a few of them; what are they doing in such a desolate location?

Most of the time we're talking about something ancient, so it should be hidden well under layers of sand. Look at the earth; sometimes we find
ancient remainings from "only" 2000 years old at 20 feet deep. Imagine is the ancient objects are 10.000 years old? that would probably mean they
would not be discovered. But it could be the top of something ancient wile the rest of it and eventuely surrounding objects are burried. That could be
the explanation.

I'm not sure the same tectonical and geographic forces on Mars (if any) are comparable to earth

I fear that the best photos available of the object have already been posted

If all that we have are these photos, nothing conclusive can be said,
IMHO: there are some clues indicating a resembleance with a volcanic rock, but they are just clues: after looking at
Spirit's traverse map i guess that there are no more photos of it:
honestly, is hard to say what it could be: its appearance is odd for sure, but in the other hand it looks to be consistent with a rock. The photos are
of bad quality, the light doesn't help: it appears darkened, and this hides the details of the object, especially its texture. Anohter attempt that
we can do would be to check the other cameras images from the same SOLs.
Sorry for not being helpful

That's a good question, not only regarding this anomalie but regarding quite a few of them; what are they doing in such a desolate location?
[edit on 29/8/2008 by saturnus1962]

I was trying to get at the point that I don't think they are ruins. I'd go with volcanic ejections or debris from the crater rims.

And if they were rocks stacked on top of each other I believe the wind would have blown them apart. There are quite a few dust devils and storms
blowing through that area. To say that they were mortared together would be a quite a stretch considering the clarity of the picture.

Originally posted by internos
SuperSlovak, thanks for sharing this one

I fear that the best photos available of the object have already been posted

If all that we have are these photos, nothing conclusive can be said,
IMHO: there are some clues indicating a resembleance with a volcanic rock, but they are just clues: after looking at
Spirit's traverse map i guess that there are no more photos of it:
honestly, is hard to say what it could be: its appearance is odd for sure, but in the other hand it looks to be consistent with a rock. The photos are
of bad quality, the light doesn't help: it appears darkened, and this hides the details of the object, especially its texture. Anohter attempt that
we can do would be to check the other cameras images from the same SOLs.
Sorry for not being helpful

Well, we should know something more about the material is made of: a porous rock eroded may be a good guess about it's strange shapes at the top: but
with the images available so far is almost impossible any guess:
Here, areo.info...
there's a color image: it doesn't help, but is better than nothing.

And if they were rocks stacked on top of each other I believe the wind would have blown them apart. There are quite a few dust devils and storms
blowing through that area.

Naw, the wind on Mars isn't very powerful - even if it is extremely fast moving at times. This is because Mars's atmosphere is much much thinner
than our own so there's only a fraction of the force exerted on objects in Mars atmosphere than there would be with an equivalent (but much denser)
wind speed on Earth.

The atmosphere of Mars is relatively thin, and the atmospheric pressure on the surface varies from around 30 Pa (0.03 kPa) on Olympus Mons's peak to
over 1155 Pa (1.155 kPa) in the depths of Hellas Planitia, with a mean surface level pressure of 600 Pa (0.6 kPa), compared to Earth's 101.3 kPa, and
a total mass of 25 teratonnes, compared to Earth's 5148 teratonnes. ~ Wikipedia

Sure it's strong enough to kick up some pretty dense dust storms, but it wouldn't generally have the force needed to push over a large pile of
rocks. This is why we're not really concerned with Mars's vicious looking dust storms in regards to establishing bases on Mars.

This is not to say that I support the idea that what we see in the photograph is a non-natural formation. The photos are rather blurry, and without a
higher resolution picture and a more detailed survey of the surrounding landscape it's hard to say whether it's even a pile of rocks or a highly
textured single rock that looks like a pile due to a trick of light.

These things can be deceiving. I recall seeing a YouTube video in which someone was displaying pictures of acres and acres of interconnecting ring
patterns formed by tiny rocks. Looked very deliberate and intelligently made. However, as it turns out, it was a natural formation caused by frost
heave.

Not to suggest that frost heave made the rock in the OP's post, but that without further information and investigation it would be rather difficult
to discern whether the formation is natural or un-natural. Since we haven't ruled out a natural formation, there's no real reason to jump to the
conclusion that it's non-natural.

hey guys i don't wanna lie to your right now.... Am french sorry about that but my english sucks a bit but i still speak spanish , french , and
arabic so please forgive me... I just took some drugs right now so am gonna open my heart for you and tell you what i think even if its not the truth
its only what i think... Am studying on computer programmation and i started like 3 years ago and i watched a lot of video about top secret things ,
government footage and lies , UFOS , all the maya things about 2012 , and hacked some governments websites. And i think if you have an idea about
something just focuse on it and search all the informations about it and then your gonna be able to have enough informations to have an opinion... Ok
i was focused on aliens things and went on a lot of websites talking bout it and some governments private websites... And just on this website you
have enough informations to have an opinion about UFOS just listen i don't told you to trust... First am gonna talk about religion , you all know
that bible or coran is based in a " god " talks but how come in this book you can find some words saying " we will always trust and have faith in
you " if its any god talking he would have said : " you will always trust and have faith in me " ok i don't say that means that religion is bull#
i respect it but for me thats weird cuz there is a contradiction... Ok if u followed my thoughts i thought if i cant trust in religion then what can i
trust in ?... Then you think what the most intelligent people in this world trust in (tesla , einstein ). Ok theres is nothing much about einstein
but the tesla case is interesting... You can search about Tesla and you will find that he invented like more than 1000 inventions like radio and
telephone and stuff ok but you maybe don't know about his most secret invention the "teslascope" he said that this thing could create so powerfull
waves that anybody in the universe could hear and detect it so here is his citation : "[I have conceived] a means that will make it possible for man
to transmit energy in large amounts, thousands of horsepower, from one planet to another, absolutely regardless of distance. I think that nothing can
be more important than interplanetary communication. It will certainly come some day. and the certitude that there are other human beings in the
universe, working, suffering, struggling, like ourselves, will produce a magic effect on mankind and will form the foundation of a universal
brotherhood that will last as long as humanity itself." but he died before he could prove any extraterestrial life... Ok so you think its done but no
!!! If you serach a bit more about tesla you will find that he had a successor called " Artur Matthews " heres is more informations about him :
"[Arthur Matthews] came from England. Matthews' father was a laboratory assistant to the noted physicist Lord Kelvin back in the 1890s. Tesla came
over to England to meet Kelvin to convince him that alternating current was more efficient than direct current. Kelvin at that time opposed the AC
movement. In 1902, the Matthews family left England and immigrated to Canada. When Matthew's was 16 his father arranged for him to apprentice under
Tesla. He eventually worked for him and continued this alliance until Tesla's death in 1943. It is not generally known, but Tesla actually had two
huge magnifying transmitters built in Canada, and Matthews operated one of them. Most people know about the Colorado Springs transmitters and the
unfinished one on Long Island. I saw the two Canadian transmitters. All the evidence is there. [The Teslascope is] the thing Tesla invented to
communicate with beings on other planets. There's a diagram of the Teslascope in Matthew's book [The Wall of Light]. In principle, it takes in
cosmic ray signals. Eventually the signals are stepped down to audio. Speak into one end, and the signal goes out the other end as a cosmic ray
emitter."

okay heres is the end... if you search more about the " Arthur Matthews " , the succesor of Tesla you will see that Matthews thought that Tesla was
an ALIEN !! Yes i said ALIEN !! Just search bout it if you don't trust me... Well Matthews thought that Tesla was an Alien cause Tesla could't say
how he create some inventions he just said that he just knew it will work... Thats weird yes but thats not the end... After some years Matthews
created the "Teslascope " with the help of Tesla's search and notes about it.... And Matthew said that he created the teslacope and it worked ,
after some days an UFO landed near his house, here is the citation : "In 'The Wall of Light,' Matthews claims that Venusians landed on his property
in Canada. They told him Tesla was one of them; from Venus. According to Matthews, Tesla was
born on a spaceship at midnight between July 9th and 10th of 1856. The
infant was entrusted to a good couple of Earth-parents who were not his
real parents. Nikola has been called the 'Superman of the Industrial
Age.' Tesla's life may have been the inspiration for the old Superman
story. He certainly reinforced the 'mad scientist' image early in the
20th Century." website : farshores.org... Heh if u still read my notes don't tell me that any professor or teacher talked about
that.... Just search on internet you will see that am not telling bull#s so thats really weird hum . Thats why i believe in extraterrestrials lives
... And btw if you read the mayan calendar you will see that its said that extraterrsitrials beings created us... Weird again ... Maybe thats just
coincidence , maybe thats all bull# , but for me thats the most credible theory i founded ... Am opened to any other theory that refutes mine or
completes it ... So know you can understand my religion am deist i believe that there is something above us for sure but i don't believe in any "
imposed " religions ... Peace and love for all and please help me in the search of the truth ...

Actually p728.html is the only page I could find with images of the supposed cairn. It looks like a big dark rock to me from the original. Also all
images on this site are black and white, and I cant find the angles previously posted so maybe there is some editing going on to make an unusual rock
look like a structure?
Now having said that I have just downloaded the image and zoomed in on my photo editor, and was suprised to see it actualy does look like a cairn or
pile of smaller rocks! it could just be a digital pixelated effect, but im no expert.

Interesting, but im not sold. I think the zoom on the post gives a missleading perspective. If you go look at the original NASA image the rock itself
is quite small, much the same as that egyptian statue in another thread.

It looks natural. If you look at the main source image there is a similar formation of the same sort of rock on the left edge of the picture just
above the middle of the left side. It just seems more out of place because it does not have much around it.

Originally posted by Lasheic
Naw, the wind on Mars isn't very powerful - even if it is extremely fast moving at times. This is because Mars's atmosphere is much much thinner
than our own so there's only a fraction of the force exerted on objects in Mars atmosphere than there would be with an equivalent (but much denser)
wind speed on Earth.

According to the space probes sent by a few agencies two thirds ( NASA/USSR)of which are known to lie on command ....

The new high-altitude cloud layer has implications for landing on Mars as it suggests the upper layers of Mars' atmosphere can be denser than
previously thought. This will be an important piece of information for future missions, when using friction in the outer atmosphere to slow down
spacecraft (in a technique called 'aerobraking'), either for landing or going into orbit around the planet.

So how much denser it is i suppose i will just continue to speculate on it :

Mars is often depicted as a dusty place, and it is. But it can be cloudy on the red planet, too. And Martian clouds are sometimes more like
terrestrial clouds than you might think.

In this photo, taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and released earlier this month, clouds surround several of Mars' towering volcanoes. One of
them, Olympus Mons, soars 15 miles (24 kilometers) above the surface. What are the clouds made of? Water ice, say scientists at Malin Space Science
Systems, which operates the spacecraft's camera.

Opportunity, back on the Meridiani Planum, took pictures of wispy clouds that look strikingly like cirrus clouds on Earth.
"This is just a totally spectacular image," said NASA rover scientist Michael Wolff as he presented the first image. And upon unveiling the second:
"I can't get enough of these."

Wolff said the clouds are almost surely made of water ice. They've been spotted by orbiting spacecraft before and are known to occur near the equator
-- where the rovers are -- only when Mars is at aphelion, or at its farthest point from the Sun on its elliptical orbit. During aphelion, about 40
percent less sunlight warms the planet, changing the climate,

On Earth, the condensing substance is water vapor, which forms small droplets of water (typically 0.01 mm of ice crystals) that, when surrounded
with billions of other droplets or crystals, are visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70 to 95%) throughout the visible
range of wavelengths: they thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light very efficiently, so that the intensity of
the solar radiation decreases with depth into the cloud, hence the grey or even sometimes dark appearance of the clouds at their base.

Unlike the Earth, where clouds are found around the entire globe, on Mars, clouds seem only to be found near the equator, as shown in this Hubble
telescope image. This may be because water of Mars may only exist at equatorial regions.

As early as 1796 scientists were reporting "yellow", and "white" or "bluish" clouds in the Martian atmosphere. With data from the Mariner 9
mission, scientists could finally prove that the clouds were made of water. Mars Global Surveyor is providing more proof of the existence of water
clouds.

More study is needed to understand just how the clouds come and go in the Martian atmosphere. For example, even though clouds have been found, there
is no proof it actually rains on Mars! Precipitation of water depends upon how cold it is. The temperatures in the atmosphere may be too cold for
water to fall to the ground as droplets.

With respect to the reflectance due to density those Martian clouds don't seem as thin or 'tenous' as suggested by low atmospheric pressures.
Having said that i know that we have not even figured out this planet's atmosphere so it wont serve someone as unqualified as myself to presume to
know all the factors that could allow dense seeming clouds with very low atmospheric pressure.

Sure it's strong enough to kick up some pretty dense dust storms, but it wouldn't generally have the force needed to push over a large pile
of rocks. This is why we're not really concerned with Mars's vicious looking dust storms in regards to establishing bases on Mars.

But apparently it does have enough force to clean the rovers solar panels? Or is that rather due to to rain or snow that melts away?

What is clear is that clouds hover over the caps as the weather starts to warm in the martian spring in the northern and southern hemisphere.
Orbiter data shows that those thin clouds vanish as the sun rises, and that the material falls back to Mars as frost or snow.

"This is clearly evidence that it snows on Mars," Smith said.
It's a far cry from the dry and dead world imagined by previous generations.

"The Mars we thought we knew was not the real Mars," says Ken Edgett, a geologist with Malin Space Science Systems of San Diego, California, which
built the orbiter's cameras. "I'm personally surprised."

This is not to say that I support the idea that what we see in the photograph is a non-natural formation. The photos are rather blurry, and
without a higher resolution picture and a more detailed survey of the surrounding landscape it's hard to say whether it's even a pile of rocks or a
highly textured single rock that looks like a pile due to a trick of light.

You can scroll down to the bottom and check out the area between the two large white 'peak's.

These things can be deceiving. I recall seeing a YouTube video in which someone was displaying pictures of acres and acres of interconnecting
ring patterns formed by tiny rocks. Looked very deliberate and intelligently made. However, as it turns out, it was a natural formation caused by
frost heave.

It's easy to be decieved when you want to believe. I don't particularly care about ancient ruins on Mars as it just creates more questions i have no
time to find answers for; this planet has enough history to study.

Not to suggest that frost heave made the rock in the OP's post, but that without further information and investigation it would be rather
difficult to discern whether the formation is natural or un-natural. Since we haven't ruled out a natural formation, there's no real reason to jump
to the conclusion that it's non-natural.

I think we can just easily go back to the face at Cydonia to expose the fact that NASA and others will lie and tamper with evidence even when it's
that large scale a structure. What i have nearly as interesting as the vapid beliefs in current or past intelligent life on Mars is the denial of
otherwise intelligent folk who allow themselves to be so easily fooled by obviously manipulated data. We are all show to be fools when we have made up
our minds up and refuse to change it.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.